#FYI: Why Are There No Native Monkeys In North america? The infamous Mystery Monkey of Tampa an escaped rhesus macaque was captured back in October. The rhesus macaque is not a rare monkey; it's adapted to human society better than most can survive on all kinds of foods and can live in most any kind of hot-weather environment. And yet the Mystery Monkey captured the nation's attention. A monkey! On the loose! In Florida! So cool! And it got us wondering: why aren't there monkeys all over the United states? We've got tropical zones in the Florida keys and the Caribbean hot grasslands in the deep south humid swamps in Louisiana and South Florida. And there are cold-weather monkeys too for instance in northern Japan and The himalayas. What's the deal? Why don't we have any wild monkeys here? I spoke to Dr. John Flynn a paleontologist and expert on mammalian evolution at the American Museum of Natural history to find out why the US is stuck with lame squirrels and pigeons and stuff rather than cool monkeys. In terms of modern primates that's a true observation he said. But 50 million years ago there were primates here. It turns out there are lots of reasons why the ancient primates that inhabited what is now the United states--and even Canada! --no longer call those areas home. Primates came to the New world (meaning North and South america) from we think Africa. As improbable as it sounds scientists think early primates crossed the Atlantic ocean and landed on the shores of both continents tens of millions of years ago probably on some kind of vegetation raft. That's how most plants and animals get to isolated islands --which The americas were at the time. Fossils have been recovered of early primates in Texas a whopping 43 million years ago the oldest primate fossil ever found in North america. But the continents looked very different then compared to now; most importantly North and South america were completely different islands. The Isthmus of panama which we now refer to as Central america didn't appear until much later by which time the climate on both Americas was very different from when the primates first landed there. When they did first land here the climate was much warmer than it is now and the primates evolved and diversified to take advantage of that. Then the planet began to cool and cool quickly. Forests died out. The poles covered with ice. Many of the flora and fauna that had populated the planet during the Eocene just couldn't survive in the new colder world. This event is called the Grande Coupure--occurring about 33.9 million years ago it was a mass extinction of animals in which most of the world's creatures (aside from a precious few like the Virginia opossum and the dormouse) were unable to adapt to the new climate and perished. It hit the primate family especially hard. In the New world the primate population shrunk significantly. Any primate living in say the Great lakes region simply went extinct unable to cope with the new Wisconsin winters. In South america the primates contracted to the region around the equator. But even the hottest southernmost parts of North america--then still detached from South america--were too chilly or otherwise inhospitable for the North american Primates. The few places where they maybe could have survived like the Florida keys and the islands of the Caribbean were inaccessible. Sure monkeys could have survived in Aruba if they had arrived at just the right time. But the chances of getting there on some kind of float the way primates had come over from Africa so many millions of years before were slim and the Earth was cooling rapidly. There are some primate fossils from the Caribbean; Some monkeys have gotten to some of the Caribbean islands and gone extinct says Dr. Flynn. Another collection of random events and they might have survived but not this time. The specific type of primate that survived is called the Platyrrhines. The Platyrrhines or New world monkeys says Dr. Flynn are all arboreal. They live in tropical forests; they're specialized for that kind of habitat. So the monkeys we now know which live in the warmer and more forested parts of South and Central america are all the survivors of the cooling planet. They lucked out and ended up in the one section of the New world that could suit them. And there they stayed adapting and evolving. Then 3 million years ago the Isthmus of panama formed connecting North and South america and separating the Atlantic from the Pacific oceans. That's not that long ago in geographic terms. A few species--Dr. Flynn specifically named the various species of spider monkey--were hardy enough to move north along the isthmus and survive as far north as southern Mexico. North of that was desert. Too dry and too sparsely forested for a New world monkey to traverse. Why haven't they moved further north? Well the Platyrrhines are not especially adaptable animals. Unlike the macaque and other Old world monkeys--or even non-primates like the raccoon or fox--they need trees they need heat and they need moisture. Push them too far north and they simply won't survive. There's a distinct climate zone division in southern Mexico--no Mexican monkey can make it on the northern side. Primates are often intelligent but that doesn't translate into adaptability. Think of the mountain gorilla restricted to a few populations in forested Central africa unable to live anywhere else. Adaptability is often a sign of intelligence but intelligence in a species is no guarantee of adaptability. The recurring answer to the question of why there are no monkeys in the US is how would they get here? Other animals and probably humans passed over the Bering Land Bridge from Russian into Alaska but the Bering Land Bridge appeared only 20000 years ago--long after the planet had cooled to when that latitude would be deathly cold for a monkey. The only way you could get to North america would be polar routes or through water says Dr. Flynn. Even the most extreme monkeys don't get to the super high latitudes so the continent was effectively sealed off. Monkeys can certainly survive in North america. The Mystery Monkey of Tampa is proof enough of that. But for them to survive here they have to get here--the monkeys that were here the Platyrrhines aren't the ones to survive in a place like Tampa. It's actually possible that a Platyrrhine could maybe give it a go in the Caribbean or the Florida keys the most tropical environments north of Mexico but: how would they get there (since those are all islands) and would they be able to survive with as much human settlement as those places have? Macaques could make it but it would take someone bringing them here--and that's exactly what happened in the case of the Mystery Monkey which was part of a troupe of macaques released by some lunatic tour boat operator known as Colonel Tooey who thought the macaques would make for a better Jungle Cruise. This is a true story. Florida is weird. Short of a whole bunch of determined crazies monkeys that would survive in North america don't have the means to get here. But! What about global warming? Could the scourge of climate change lead to a friendly neighborhood monkey in Brooklyn? Anything is possible in evolution says Dr. Flynn. If climate change continues and it gets warmer globally they could continue further north. But we'd need continuous forests from southern Mexico on northwards and dryness is an issue though in the future they might get increased rainfall. So no monkeys in the near future. But if the temperature keeps rising I'll keep an eye out my window just the same. Very interesting but the real reason we don't have monkeys is bananas. We don't have bananas. Natural monkeys and Neanderthals primates do not like the cold. It is only the alien-(Gods as they were referred by the local folk and the name stuck-)manipulated tweak DNA modern homosapien man-(Man was created by the GODS)- that tolerates and adapts to the cold. Ok comets and asteroids feeding early earth alien life with the organic stew of chemicals were going on plus lots of time to make life On earth. Next add evolution to life for variation and adaptability. Finally visitations by foreign folk coming down to Earth from above to gather resources and exploit the primates and inventing modern man to really exploit the primates for their own purpose as the alien foreign folk visited Earth. Human Man was created to serve the GODS. Mix in that some goods are good some gods are not good some gods are more powerful than other gods aliens. Everything happen for logical reasons and for lack of a vocabulary to describe what they saw the local modern humans with their newly taught language recorded what they saw perhaps with a spice of magic for lack of a better description. If what I say is completely true it would toss out the window religion but a real contest of competing alien folk that visit Earth. One of these alien folk is really powerful and cares about life On earth humans. One or several alien folk just wants to exploit us. The good and evil we see On earth is also in the cosmos and what we know of science On earth can and does explain life in the cosmos as well even in social terms. as Mike explained I didnt even know that some one able to earn $8185 in 1 month on the computer. did you read this link...strong>fox85. com</strong>Am I missing something here? The Caribbean does have primates. the island of Trinidad has a fairly large population. And what physical separation is there between North and South america besides the man made Panama canal? Why couldn't the monkeys just walk to North america like any other animal and adapt along the way? killert Awesome obvious overlooked observation.;And it is definitely possible for monkeys to adapt to cold. en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Golden snub-nosed monkeythey seem to do very well living in Atlanta Chicago and DC...but for the most part they are too stupid to adjust to change and really just live where they live. It would be like you get up to leave your house open the door and go its too cold and never leave the house. Unless you went from heated house to heated garage to heated car then drove to where it was warm...Even the cold monkeys cant navigate the WARM areas to get to the COLD areas. that is why animals die off the habitat they are in dies offi've seen quite a few. Look again. There's a breeding colony of 3500 rhesus monkeys on a SC sea island. They're owned by the NIH and trapped for research labs . I know it sounds like the beginning of a low-budget killer-virus movie but it's real. And guess what? They actually do carry a virus that's harmless to monkeys but 80%fatal to humans! Maybe they should make a movie! So yes they can survive and thrive here. Google monkey island sc if you don't believe it. monkeyisland...Historically the island has been uninhabitited due to its location and distance from the mainland. The island's layout consists mainly of marsh-land but does have 635 acres of higher ground (Klopchin). Originally the monkey colony now located on Morgan Island was located in La Parguera Puerto rico at the Caribbean Primate Research center (Klopchin 2). According to the CDC (Center for disease control and Prevention) there were incidents of the free-ranging monkeys escaping while infected with the herpes B virus . Although the herpes B virus is not harmful to the monkeys once transmitted to a human the virus infection has an almost 80%fatality rate (Shemcreeks). The CDC report stated that there were outbreaks among locals when the monkeys became overpopulated. Puerto rico was alarmed by this and South carolina stepped in to offer an island for research. South carolina offered uninhabited Morgan Island for the monkeys to be housed. In 1979 over 1400 animals were relocated to Morgan Island (Klopchin 2)..http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Morgan island south carolinamr. george---it mentioned that possibly primates possibly crossed the atlantic in some type of boat --i disagree--at one time there werent any massive oceans there must have been large seas between the continents---during the cooling period of earths formation steam was settled developing which in the gaps between the continents causing water to develop in the gaps causing seas to develop so millions of years ago the oceans hadnt been developed yet only these seas from from when earth was starting to be formed. the primates were able to leave africa and cross the world travelling around the sea between africa and north america coming to our part of the world. the oceans were formed from the 4 glaciation periods that came about. during each glaciation period the gaps between the continents were getting filled up with water from the melted ice on top of the world from a gigantic block of ice many thousands of miles wide and many miles high and by the time the last glaciation period ended the oceans had formed fully . but before thenprimates just migrated from africa to here walking around the sea. even camels were here. there bones have been found in tucsonarizona; they migrated also travelling around the sea. in south america there are drawings on cliffs of animals that existed in africa and apparently they migated from africa also travelling around the sea. there could have been two seas-one in the northern hemisphere and one in the southern hemisphereand the animals leaving africa for south america could have travelled around a sea in the southern hemisphere. mr. george-i forgot to mention that when the primates came to the united states they discovered there werent bananas here so they didnt stay and develop or wed have monkeys today in the united states. Can we blame global warming on those little North american monkeys in their monkey boats? Did they have little internal combustion engines back then? This comments section is a desolate wasteland of ignorance and misinformation much of it by people who clearly couldn't be bothered to even read past the headline. If anyone is interested actually in some answers about primates I'm a primatologist-in-training inquire and I'll answer to the best of my ability y

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